


give me everything you have

by littlequasimonsters



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2471837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlequasimonsters/pseuds/littlequasimonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t say, “But you already have my everything.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	give me everything you have

Percy and Nico are sparring in the arena under the welcoming summer sun, all laughter and wind clap and the ease of people who have molded their bodies to fit a destiny of fighting to survive so anything less is child’s play.

The other campers crowd around them, circling them in with a coliseum wall of bodies. Their cheering and shouting act as a backdrop to the clanging of swords and their own heavy breathing.

This is what demigods like them used to do all the time when Greece was in its Golden Age of Sparta and Athens and the Rage of the Gods. Nico thinks that maybe they’re like Achilles and Patrolcus. Fighting because what else do they know how to do?

Nico knows in some bone-deep part of him like he knows ghosts and shadows that if Percy asked him to, if the sea-born boy with the stardust prophecy needed him to, then he would wear Percy's armor for him, and he would fight to the death so that he might save Percy the pain of war.

Only Nico doubts that Percy would burn an army to the ground in his name. At least, no more for him than he would for anybody else because at the end of the day, Percy is a hero, their hero, and that’s just what heroes do. He sometimes doubts that he would love Percy half as much if he weren’t so willing to save everyone.

“C’mon, Di Angelo, give me everything you've got,” Percy says, the challenge clear in his father’s ocean-green eyes and his brilliant, laughing grin.

Nico feels a strange certainty settle in his marrow. It’s the same certainty Nico gets when he moves his hands just right, and the earth turns, searching for those long departed. It’s also the exact same certainty as when he sat in awe with shaky, ten-year-old knees at the contrast between Percy’s black hair and the white snow and the gold glint of Riptide. He felt it when he was staring down the long end of a sword leveled to kill in a dark cell in Hades’ Palace, and his whole world just shifted to fit this feeling.

Nico spent a total of maybe four years in school and the rest of his life integrated and immersed in Grecian myth. He never learned the words needed to phrase this absolute knowledge into words. Instead, he nods and keeps his sword raised and his guard up.

He doesn’t say, “But you already have my everything.”


End file.
